LASOX Cutting: Principles and Evolution

Nowadays, gas-assisted laser cutting of mild and carbon steels has been widely used in manufacturing industries for its accuracy and efficiency. But laser power requirement increases with thickness of the plate and increases process cost substantially. Laser assisted oxygen cutting (LASOX) is an effective method for cutting thick section cutting of mild steel with low power laser. The present chapter has explained the development of the LASOX process with its basic working principle. Researches carried out so far for modelling and optimisations of the LASOX process parameters using conventional statistical methods also have been discussed. But it has been observed that, limitations of statistical methods for modelling of complex non linear relationship between variables of laser material processing can be overcome by incorporating soft computing techniques. Those techniques are widely used in different laser material Processing. Some significant recent works have been discussed in the present chapter. But it has been yet to be incorporated in LASOX processes. Chapter ends with a notion to develop constructive integrated soft computing models for modelling and optimisation of LASOX processes.